Abstract: In Fukushima. Récit d’un désastre (2012), Michaël Ferrier tells the story of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011. This article, focused on the second part of the book, where the narrator tells of his journey up the Pacific coast of the Archipelago, analyzes this text as a travel narrative, to show how literature can and must rely on experience (of oneself and others) to witness a human catastrophe while inventing a new language.